Gallery Henoch Presents Eric Wert's THE HUNT

Eric Wert's opulent new painting, The Hunt, is now on view at the gallery. Wert takes his inspiration from various sources, including historical fabrics from museum collections. Wert writes, "The background of The Hunt is an excerpt from one of The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries from the Cloisters in NYC. The Medieval story of the Unicorn Hunt was often seen as an allegory for courtly love where a savage beast is tamed by the pure virgin. I like the contrast of that theme with the upended bouquet: maybe the beast was not so well tamed, or maybe the virgin was not so docile. I was also struck by the accuracy of the representation of plants in the Unicorn Tapestries - at a time when scientific drawings and paintings were often quite crude and misleading, the plants in these tapestries can still be identified today. I like the idea of contrasting this historical botanical representation with what we might think of today as a more realistic representation of similar plants (there are thistles in the bouquet and the background). My botanical representation is more labored and ornate, but probably no more useful than those of 500 years ago."

Photo Credit: Eric Wert, The Hunt, Oil on Panel, 30" x 24"